Cisco lays off nearly 700 employees in SF Bay Area in US

SAN FRANCISCO: Networking giant Cisco has laid off nearly 700 positions in the Bay Area -- including 80 at its San Francisco offices.

According to SFGATE, the tech company has laid off a total of 673 workers as part of a "limited business restructuring" announced in November last year.

"At its headquarters, 371 workers were affected, including two Cisco vice presidents," the report said late on Friday.

At the Milpitas office, 222 workers were asked to go, primarily engineers and technical employees.

It is, however, unclear whether Cisco will conduct more layoff rounds.

The networking major is reportedly laying off 5 per cent of its workforce, or more than 4,000 employees.

More than 52 per cent of its global staff is located outside of the US.

Joining the Big Tech layoff season, networking major Cisco in November announced layoffs in a "rebalancing" act while "rightsizing certain businesses".

Cisco had said in a statement that "we didn't take this decision lightly, and we will offer those impacted by extensive support, including generous severance packages".

In its first quarter earning report (Q1 2023), Cisco reported $13.6 billion in revenue, up 6 per cent year over year.

Chuck Robbins, Chairman and CEO of Cisco, did not divulge any detail on laying off employees, saying he would "be reluctant to go into a lot of detail here until we're able to talk to them. I would say that what we're doing is rightsizing certain businesses".

"You can just assume that we're going to -- we're not actually -- there's nothing that's a lower priority, but we are rightsizing certain businesses," he had told the analysts.

Cisco Chief Financial Officer Scott Herren had described the move as a "rebalancing" act.